So I’ve finally opened up about myself. I’ve managed to tell my mom, some of my coworkers, a few friends, and even my psychologist. And sometimes I hate it. I know how I am, what I am, and how I act, but it seems like admitting it openly like this is just something of a crime.

I was asked by a coworker who’d heard what I’d told a manager at work (in private) through the grape vine and asked me if it was true. I told her yeah, I figured why lie anymore? So a few nights later she started asking me about it, really getting me thinking.

So why do you feel this way?
Why? I dunno, I’ve just always felt this way. I’ve never really felt…girlish. Not exactly sure how else to put it really. I mean I’m me and I live in a female body, but I’ve never really seemed to ‘fit’. When all the other girls would act one way I thought it was kinda funny they’d act that way. Then I started realizing that…well, I was acting more like the guys.

So? I don’t always feel girly and act feminine, and I don’t want to be a man.
It’s…a little different from that. I mean I seemed to take being a tomboy to a new extreme. And when your own mother and grandmother notice this and start to say things like “Well girls/ladies don’t act like that” you start to realize something’s wrong with you. But then…I guess saying there was something wrong with me wasn’t exactly right, it’s more like…something different.
What about your..sexual orientation? I mean are you like…a lesbian or something?
Heh, no no it’s nothing like that. I like guys, and that’s half my problem. See I keep getting this whole scenario, well if you become a man and still like men you’ll be gay and that’ll be a pretty lonely existence, so maybe it’d be better if you stayed a straight woman. But I dunno, I don’t like the thought of living like this forever, like living a lie for the rest of my adult life. I mean I did that during my childhood, wasn’t that enough?

So that was a fun conversation. But it didn’t end there, I asked her the obvious question:
Why? Why do you want to know?
Oh, I was just asking, cause I’d heard people saying you were just doing it for the attention.

Do you think I’m doing it for the attention?
No, not now. I just thought you should know what they were saying.

I’m glad she told me really, but it made me start to think again. And sometimes thinking just hurts.

I mean what if I am doing this for attention?
Whenever I think this I remember what one of my other coworkers said to me “When I heard I was pretty creeped out about it, but after thinking about it, that’s a cool choice.”
I think I almost broke my glasses with the face palm I gave myself. I looked at him and had to tell him it’s not a choice like you’d go out and get a tattoo. Transitioning and having the surgeries aren’t exactly temperary, you can’t say “Well I don’t like this anymore so I think I’ll go back to being a woman.” After the hormone treatment…you’re kind of stuck.

I’ve been thinking of going to a support group…thing…just so I can ask questions, so I can feel other people out and see where I stand. How far am I willing to go? I’d like to go all the way, hormones and all of the surgeries, but I don’t know. I just want people to stop calling me cute and pretty, I may have come to term with my looks, but it’s not like I really enjoy the comments, it only reaffirms the fact that I have a female body.

So, I’m sure other people have had experiences like this, and I hope anyone who read this didn’t die of boredom or fall asleep. So if you’d like you could email me and talk. ashley_boosdelano@hotmail.com is my email address, so if you want to drop me a line, it’d be much appreciated to know that this shy person isn’t all alone in the world with these feelings and experiences.